“The Universe is Warmed by Chance and Indifference” (Art Brut/The Rogers Sisters, Southpaw)

When Art Brut first came through New York, last November, the big question was:  Are these guys serious?  When Eddie Argos begged, “It’s not irony!” he was being ironic, right?  A four-night strategic deployment throughout the tri-state area left us shocked, awed by the band’s sincerity.

Half a year later they’re back and there’s a whole ‘nother question:  Are they for real?  Or is it a case of First-Time-Funny, Second-Time-Spanking?  Sincerity can be shtick, too, one that can wear thinner than the staffing in the Village Voice’s fact-checking department.

What do you know:  They are a band, formed and functional.  The show is engaging, the musicianship tighter than the Village Voice’s fact-checking department.  If I was any less exuberant leaving this AB show it was my own damn fault:  No, sir, I never scraped together a band of my own, and I’m not likely to.  If he chooses to be disappointed in me, well, I’m sort of disappointed with him, too:  He looked me straight in the eye and repeated his warning re: remembering our faces, checking up on us, making lists of bad and good children and whatnot.  Empty threats, recycled spiel.

Brut redux failed to be bothersome at all.  Sure, there were the rehearsed embellishments (“Hennessey/Morrissey” again joined by “Sherry/Bryan Ferry”... time to dig deeper into the liquor cabinet, have some Maker’s Mark with Marky Mark, or something...) and “Modern Art” didn’t make Argos want to rock out, so much, this time (he complained/apologized about having some unidentified ailment (hayfever? flu?) he’d poorly self-medicated).  “Enter Sandman” became “Formed a Band.”  Yadda, yadda.  All this time, and he’s seen her naked TWICE?!

But even the same-ol’-same-ol’ didn’t feel rote, not at all, and there were really delicious in-the-moment moments.  When, during the “Top of the Pops” roll call in “Good Weekend” – before the standard detour into “You Really Got Me” – Argos screamed “BIOHAZARD! Top of the Pops!” and the would-be metal guitarist he’d introduced, earlier, as “Ian ‘Biohazard’ Catskilkin” wheeled around, suddenly, his blue eyes beaming.  At “Barbra Streisand!  Top of the Pops!” the band just started looking at each other, cracking up.

“Good Weekend,” is according to Argos, currently “Number one in Australia... Japan... Jamaica... the former Yugoslavia... Disneyland... Narnia.” 

Argos jumped rope with the mic wire.  Sort of .  Stand-up drummer Mike played a roll/crash when the curtains opened for the encore.

The songs are there, the band shows up to play them, the crowd laps it up.  A mosh pit asserted itself in the middle of “Emily Kane,” of all things.  Better late than never, though:  The movement forced a couple of the more pathetic photographers to pack away their gadgets.

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• You should, of course, own their CD Bang Bang Rock & Roll, which was on my best-of 2005 list (as well as many others’).  If you don’t, you can buy it now (but if you’ve waited this long, it finally gets a proper U.S. release in May).


• They’re back in NYC at the Knitting Factory “curating” something called, variously, the “KFNY Invasion” and “KFNY Takeover” on May 17/18 (tix are on sale here and here) – two days that fall perilously close to the New York beard and moustache championships.


• Here’s their myspace


• For your collective little brothers, Another Form of Relief has amassed a collection of AB B-sides (via)


• Watch (the first bit of) “Modern Art” at the 4/5 Bowery Ballroom show


• RBally posted an entire Vienna concert in MP3s in two parts.

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Blog! Blog!  Rock & Roll:

• At the 4/4 Bowery Ballroom Show:  KarenPlusOne, Loose Record, Music Snobbery, One Louder, Village Indian at Stereogum, WaterCoolerGossip, and... Nick Sylvester (or... was he?).


• Bowery, 4/5:  Extrawack!, Great Whatsit, Merry Swankster, Paupered Chef,


• Southpaw, 4/11:  Quick Brown Fox, Soft Communication, Subinev, Waved Rumor

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I’m declaring a moratorium on photography at Art Brut concerts.  Petitions will be circulated.  It’s been done, people, and you’re just all taking the same picture a billion times.  Look!  It’s a sweaty Eddie Argos!  Pointing!

There were two totally obnoxious picture takers on the floor, both about six feet tall – let’s call them Douchebag One and Douchebag Two.  One was a gangly woman; she and her equally-tall friend had elbowed their way in front of bunches of shorter people.  Ms. D spent the entire first half of the concert taking pictures with her cel phone by stretching her arm over two rows of people in front of her.  The first time it was merely stupid, but she reached forward again, and again, and again, sometimes hanging out there long enough for us all to watch the “Loading Picture” screen appear twice.  She kept taking, then erasing; taking, then erasing.  And didn’t listen to those around her who were pleading, “Enough” (not that anyone should have to tell anyone that such behavior is abhorrent).  Douchebag Two was right in front of her – one of the people she was leaning over, in fact, and sometimes – this was at least absurdly funny – the pair were battling for places to put their cameras, fighting to block our view.  He was six feet, easy, had no one of comparable height in front of him, yet insisted on holding the camera over his head and firing off flash-after-flash-after-flash.  Not only does common courtesy dictate that, if you can, you hold the camera at your eye instead of in others’ ways... you get more stable pictures when you do so.

I wish I’d had my camera, only to take pictures of D’bags Un and Deux so they could be known all over the internet for the inconsiderate fucks they are.

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As for Emily Kane, Argos stopped in the middle of the song to say – as he must, I suppose, every time now – that Ms. Kane finally did hear the song and get in touch with him.  And they discussed fascinating things like credit card debt and student loans and such, and Eddie realized – as we all had, already – that the song’s not really about Emily Kane at all, but about being in love with the idea of being in love.

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The night before, I needed to fall in love with a band.  After Magneta Lane let me down, I took some giddy throwaway solace in Gito Gito Hustler.  But these things always get you when you’re not looking for them.  Enter The Rogers Sisters.

The Brooklyn trio – real sisters Jennifer (guitars, vocals) and Laura (drums, vocals) and honorary male sister Miyoki Furtado (bass, vocals) – made the most of an inauspicious entrance.  They were playing before the curtains opened, and for the first few minutes of their set, the houselights were on, the crowd at full, self-absorbed roar.  We weren’t paying attention to them, they weren’t paying attention to us:  Jen and Miyoki were staring each other down, building a huge drone between them.

Just like with Th’ Faith Healers, a couple weeks back, the x factor was there.  I can’t explain why, when some bands can make playing a single note or sequence for an eternity a revelation, others manage nothing more than an interminable bore.  But the Rogers’ knew how to use the energy.  They were obviously going to do something with it, and there was this suspense.  When?  And, because I hadn’t listened to any of their music before, What?  The way the beat was going, it could’ve laxed into a big neopsychedelic fuzz (there would be that, too, later), or even some sort of twangy alt-country thang (because there were roses stacked on the kick-drum, Jennifer was wearing a shawl, and they are called The Rogers Sisters).  Eventually, it veered into a huge backwoodsy bluesy stomp over which all three singers contributed – then just exploded into marvelous fits of slide guitar noise.

Holy mother of crap, can they handle their noise.

It was awesome, and I was in love.

But love is a fickle thing.  They’re a Brooklyn band, and I wondered why I didn’t remember seeing their name, anywhere, when I should be seeing their name everywhere.  (Granted, it’s a pretty unmemorable name.)  They’re not new:  Spoke briefly with Laura, after the show, and they’ve been playing for six years.  She said they’re always touring out of town – after these four gigs with Art Brut they’re off to Europe with Metric, then off again for a West Coast tour with Austin’s dancy-dancy I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness.  So maybe they’re already too good for local buzz?

I got home and started digging around on the net and the same phrase kept popping up:  New Wave.  What I heard was not New Wave, not at all.  There were no synthesizers, and no clean dynamics; this big VU-buzz filled every available space (which, of course, made me feel a little self-conscious for them when Argos later bellowed his “I can’t stand the sound of the Velvet Underground!”).  Nothing clicked and whirred; everything pounded and vzzzzzzzzzzzz’d and overlapped.

Live.

But on record, there’s this:

The Rogers Sisters - I Dig a Hole (mp3)

Bounce-bounce, tick-tock.  Yikes, yeah, that could be called New Wave (though that lovely garagey wah-wah-wow! does add some life).

Live, while that wasn’t one of the highlights, it was memorable.  The bulk of the song is, lyrically, “I dig a hole, I dig a hole where my house used to be”; that was the only song title the band bothered to share with the audience.  “That song,” Jennifer leaned into the mic, “was called... ‘I Dig a Hole.’”

She also said: “This is my universe so I can do whatever I want.”  The red-headed Rogers trades lead vocal duties with Furtado, spending her time away from the mic  staring down through her hair, grinding away at her instrument.  Furtado handles most of the lead vocals; he’s a more expressive singer, and uses his body to articulate the band’s energy, going from simple sway to full-on kangaroo hop.  Everything is drenched in reverb and noise, glorious noise (which, incidentally (and, sometimes, thankfully) helps deemphasize some of the lyrics).

Their new CD, The Invisible Deck (buy) is definitely more along the lines of what I heard, last night.  I can’t speak for their other releases but this song made me happy I bought the most recent one:

The Rogers Sisters – Sooner or Later (mp3) (Warning:  It’s long – it’d qualify for Ear Farm’s 8+ series)

Now that’s Quality Energy Management.

There’s more at their myspace (definitely give a listen to “Why Won’t You”), and here’s a video.

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Only caught the second half of  The Favourite Sons’ (not Favourite Sons) set.  Their bio says Brooklyn, but the music says Ireland.  That full-bodied soul-influenced Van Morrison-Hothouse Flowers-et cetera strain (no fiddles or other bits of malarkey, though).  Didn’t grab me, but I was just getting settled in.

Here’s their myspace; they’re also playing a KEXP showcase next month.

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Ah, that crazy little thing called love.

I thought it was totally appropriate to watch American Idol before Art Brut.  After all, it’s just a huge, mechanized version of “We Formed a Band,” right?

Besides, it was “Queen Night.”  At least they’d be butchering decent music.

Quick thoughts:

Mandisa gets kicked off instead of Bucky... and he performs “Fat Bottomed Girls” the very next week?  Insult to injury.

Pickler’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” wasn’t tragic, but I spent the first 85 seconds of the minute-and-a-half rendition laughing my ass off.  That face, singing “Mama, just killed a man?” – hilarious.  But she’s worth keeping for her dumb-as-a-cow-patty repartee.  She had no idea, during the post-song wrap-up, what the phrase “on paper” meant.  Priceless.

Why was Mickey Dolenz in the audience on Queen Night?

Why is Terence Stamp in Queen?

Taylor Hicks got all spazzy again, just the way we likes ‘im.  Took him two kicks to knock over his mic stand, and he staggered woozily around the arena in the name of “pumping up the crowd.”  The more out-of-control and off-kilter the show gets, the better it is.

Here’s Hicks doing a serviceable version of “Crazy”...

Taylor Hicks - Crazy Little Thing Called Love (mp3)

Better yet, if it’s still available, watch it.

The frighteningly complete site Gray Charles (thanks, Yeti) also has a bunch of other versions you can download.  Compare, contrast, etc.

Now matter how good (or enjoyably bad) the Idol hands get, though, there’s nothing they can do in that little box that could possibly compare to a live show.  Real musicians don’t need to be idols or stars.  They need to be on stage, making music, and you need to be there watching them.  The millions of people who tune in for the horse race, every week, who spend all night texting and plugging away at the redial can’t claim to be doing it for the music.  Get off the couch, get down to the corner club or bar, see someone local.  There’s more magic in the little pinky of the lousiest white-boy blues band than there is in all of Idol.  That’s the point of Taylor Hicks:  That’s where he was before, that’s where he’ll inevitably wind up.  There are a million Taylor Hickses out there, and you can see them for a fiver and a two-drink minimum.  Or less.  Go out, support the music.  If you do nothing more than stay home and watch Idol, you’re supporting Ford and FOX.

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Apropos of nothing... this is the happiest happynews.com piece I’ve seen in some time. 

tags: rogers sisters  favourite sons  concert reviews  art brut  american idol  taylor hicks  

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